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The French Laundry Cookbook

Beschreibung

IACP Award Winner

2019 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the acclaimed French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley—“the most exciting place to eat in the United States” (The New York Times). The most transformative cookbook of the century celebrates this milestone by showcasing the genius of chef/proprietor Thomas Keller himself. Keller is a wizard, a purist, a man obsessed with getting it right. And this, his first cookbook, is every bit as satisfying as a French Laundry meal itself: a series of small, impeccable, highly refined, intensely focused courses.

Most dazzling is how simple Keller's methods are: squeegeeing the moisture from the skin on fish so it sautées beautifully; poaching eggs in a deep pot of water for perfect shape; the initial steeping in the shell that makes cooking raw lobster out of the shell a cinch; using vinegar as a flavor enhancer; the repeated washing of bones for stock for the cleanest, clearest tastes.

From innovative soup techniques, to the proper way to cook green vegetables, to secrets of great fish cookery, to the creation of breathtaking desserts; from beurre monté to foie gras au torchon, to a wild and thoroughly unexpected take on coffee and doughnuts, The French Laundry Cookbook captures, through recipes, essays, profiles, and extraordinary photography, one of America's great restaurants, its great chef, and the food that makes both unique.

One hundred and fifty superlative recipes are exact recipes from the French Laundry kitchen—no shortcuts have been taken, no critical steps ignored, all have been thoroughly tested in home kitchens. If you can't get to the French Laundry, you can now re-create at home the very experience Wine Spectator described as “as close to dining perfection as it gets.”

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The French Laundry Cookbook - Susie Heller

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CANAPÉS

Bacon and Eggs

The law of diminishing returns

White Truffle Oil—Infused Custard

Most chefs try to satisfy a customer’s hunger in a short time with one or two dishes. They begin with something great. The initial bite is fabulous. The second bite is great. But by the third bite—with many more to come—the flavors begin to deaden, and the diner loses interest. It’s like getting into a hot bath or jumping into a cold pool. At first, the temperature is shocking, but after a few minutes, you get so used to it that you don’t even notice it. Your mouth reacts the same way to flavors and sensations.

Many chefs try to counter the deadening effect by putting a lot of different flavors on the plate to keep interest alive. But then the diner can’t focus on anything because it’s confusing.

What I want is that initial shock, that jolt, that surprise to be the only thing you experience. So I serve five to ten small courses, each meant to satisfy your appetite and pique your curiosity. I want you to say, God, I wish I had just one more bite of that. And then the next plate comes and the same thing happens, but it’s a different experience, a whole new flavor and feel.

The way to keep the experience fresh is not by adding more flavors, but rather by focusing more on specific flavors, either by making them more intense than the foods from which they come, or by varying the preparation technique. When I decide to make liver and onions, for instance, I might roast a whole foie gras and serve it with four different onion preparations—confit, roasted, glazed red, and glazed white. Or I might serve a calf’s liver with just two of those preparations. The point is to isolate and enhance flavors, not confuse them. One lamb course might include five different lamb preparations, another might be simply a lamb chop with lamb sweetbreads.

When I combine flavors, I do so in traditional ways. Sometimes that lamb is served with eggplant and mint—a combination verging on cliché. But I roast the eggplant with butter until it is a virtual fondue, and I infuse the mint into a deep emerald oil.

My favorite dishes for inspiration are traditional ones like quiche lorraine, daube of beef, short ribs, sole Véronique. What is sole Véronique? Sole with grapes. At the restaurant, I serve a sole dish with a little more structure to it. I make a stuffing of sultana raisins (dried grapes) and brioche croutons, fold the sole around it to make a kind of package, and serve it with a classic glaçage. It still has the integrity of sole Véronique, but with a modern interpretation.

To achieve the effects I want, I serve courses that are small relative to portions you’ll find at most restaurants. But small is not the point. The point is this: For every course, there is a perfect quantity. Some courses must be small because of what they are: A quail egg is small. One bite is enough; two eggs would be redundant. The scallops we get are about three ounces—nearly as big as a filet mignon. In a meal of five to ten courses, you don’t need more than one scallop.

With foie gras, though, I serve just slightly too much of it, because I want people to know what foie gras is all about. I go overboard with truffles and caviar too, so that people who have perhaps only eaten truffles in stingy quantities can taste them and say, Oh, now I understand.

Many ideas are created simply from the need to make use of something. When friends brought us an unexpected gift of farm-fresh eggs, we immediately thought to feature them in a custard. We had truffle scraps and truffle oil on hand. This dish is really that simple: two components, the most fundamental and the most rarefied, come together in an extraordinary way. We bake the custards in cleaned eggshells, then top them with truffle ragout and garnish each with a perfect chive potato chip.

FOR THE CHIVE CHIPS: Have all the ingredients ready when you begin and work quickly to prevent the potato slices from oxidizing (turning brown). One potato will make about 20 chips. You will need only 8 for this recipe; the extras make a great snack.

Preheat the oven to 275°F.

Peel the potato and use a paring knife to trim it into a Band-Aid shape (straight sides, rounded ends) approximately 4 inches long and 1 inch wide.

Brush two Silpats (see Sources) with the clarified butter and sprinkle each lightly with kosher salt. Place one Silpat on a baking sheet. Using a mandoline, cut the potato lengthwise into paper-thin slices. As you work, stack the potatoes in the order you cut them so that you will be able to match them up as closely as possible.

Lay the potato slices on the Silpat in pairs, keeping each one’s match at its side. Place a chive in the center of one of the potato slices and cover each slice with its match. Use your fingers to press and smooth each chip, removing any air pockets between the two potato slices.

Place the second prepared Silpat over the potatoes, buttered side down, and top it with a baking sheet to weight the potatoes and keep them flat. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, reversing the pan halfway through the cooking process. Remove the chips when they are golden brown. The chive chips can be baked up to 2 days ahead and kept in an airtight